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Supporters of Drug Bill Fight Back Against Ads

By H. Gregory Meyer
Tribune staff reporter

July 14, 2003

With a vote due as soon as this week in Congress on a bill that would allow Americans to buy imported prescription drugs to save money, opponents have aired aggressive radio advertisements in Chicago and other markets--and the bill's sponsors are now fighting back.

The ads, airing on WBBM-AM 780 and other stations for the last week, say importing drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries could put patients in danger of fake or inferior medicines.

"It's one thing for a politician to risk their own life with unsafe medicines. It's another for them to risk yours," say the ads, sponsored by a group called the Partnership for Safe Medicines that includes the Virginia-based Seniors Coalition and the pharmaceutical industry's chief lobbying arm.

U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a sponsor of the legislation, said he will announce a response ad Monday in Chicago.
"They chose to scare you," Emanuel said of the opponents' ads.

The bill comes as some seniors facing high drug costs have taken to traveling to Canada to fill their prescriptions. Pharmacists' bills there are generally lower.

And it follows the passage in the U.S. Senate of the massive Medicare prescription drug bill now in conference between the two houses. Attached to the bill is a provision that would permit U.S. pharmacists to buy drugs in Canada and resell them in the U.S. as a way to cut drug costs.

But the House bill, whose chief sponsor is Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.), would go further, allowing not only the so-called reimportation of U.S.-made drugs, as allowed in the Senate bill, but also the purchase of drugs made in a number of industrialized nations. The House could vote on the bill this week, said Chris Butler, director of public affairs for the Seniors Coalition.
Emanuel said the point of the bill is that "competition from the free market and choice will drive prices down and make medicines affordable."

Also, with the Medicare bill's price tag estimated at $400 billion over the next 10 years, "we better be darn sure we're going to get the best prices out there," Emanuel said.

His office released figures comparing retail prices of the same drugs in Germany and the U.S. The German drugs in the limited sample were significantly cheaper.

Butler acknowledged that issues besides drug safety are at stake. He said price controls in some countries gnaw at pharmaceutical companies' profits.

"When you import drugs from countries that enforce price controls, you import price controls," he said. "That stifles innovation."

One of the groups lobbying against the bill is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the main policymaking and lobbying wing of the drug industry.

The ads play up supposed threats. "Today when you go to the drugstore and fill a prescription, you never think twice about whether that medicine is real or fake, safe or dangerous, because the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] gold standard has been protecting Americans for decades," read the ads, a transcript of which was provided by Emanuel's office. "Shockingly, Congress is set to vote on changes to that safe system."

The ad urges listeners to call selected legislators. Six of the 93 targeted legislators are from Illinois, Butler said.

Emanuel said the House bill would allow importing drugs only from companies whose manufacturing operations are registered with the FDA.

The FDA has traditionally opposed the importation of prescription drugs because of concerns about safety and quality.
Emanuel said the bill would also require drug companies to use technologies to resist counterfeiting.

"It's the same product," Emanuel said. "The only reason they pay more at their local grocery stores is because pharmaceutical companies have figured out how to make America into a closed market."

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